Business owners criticize EDC’s $3 billion remediation and redevelopment plan for a new Willets Point. Image: NYC EDC.

Concerns over displacement of businesses dominated hearing. On June 13, 2007, the City Council’s Land Use Committee and its Economic Development Committee held a joint oversight hearing on the proposal by New York City’s Economic Development Corporation to redevelop 61 acres of Willets Point in Queens. The site, located directly east of Shea Stadium, is mostly privately owned and currently home to a mix of automobile related, light industrial and manufacturing businesses. EDC estimates that 250 businesses employing about 1,300 people operate from the area. Much of the site lacks paved roads, sewers, or sidewalks and is heavily contaminated from illegal dumping, leaky underground tanks, and spills.

EDC President Robert Lieber presented a redevelopment plan for the area, which would remediate the environmental contamination and raise the grade to bring the area out of the 100-year flood plain. After gaining control of the property, EDC would seek to rezone it from industrial (M3-1) to mixed-use (C4- 4) with a special district overlay, remap many of its streets, and create an urban renewal plan to guide future development. EDC plans to start the public approval process in fall 2007, allowing it to select developers to implement the plan in summer 2008. (more…)